


A Teacher's Impact

by dreamfall



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Old West, Teaching, discusses pre-canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-09 21:26:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10422111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamfall/pseuds/dreamfall
Summary: A couple young strangers pause in town for the stage's rest stop, and recognize a similarity in Ezra to someone they knew. Vin and he join them for lunch to discuss acquaintances.





	

Vin felt Ezra stiffen beside him, and he turned a little so he could see his friend’s face out of the corner of his eye.  He was too late to see any expression, if any had, indeed, crossed his face, but he’d felt Ezra start as though to move forward as the young couple got off the stage, and then relax back like he’d never moved.

Curiously, he looked at the pair.  A boy and a girl, perhaps eighteen or a bit older.  The boy was tall and sun-bronzed and a little stocky, with black hair and brown eyes.  He looked like a farmer’s boy, but there was a restrained energy about him that brought JD’s first arrival in town rather forcefully to mind, although he wore no gun belt.  The girl was of average height, and slim, with features more sweet than pretty but that same eager excitement.  He didn’t hand her down, and she didn’t seem to expect him too, lifting her skirts a bit to reveal boots beneath, and jumping down from the step to look around.  Not sweethearts, Vin decided, as each of the pair looked around, him starting to the left and her to the right and both of them moving in.  Not siblings—there was no sign of shared blood between them.  The boy moved automatically to block another passenger from jostling the girl as he caught a bag tossed down by the coachman, and she touched his arm to balance herself, and then released it, unselfconsciously.  Friends, though. 

The boy had looked up to grab his own bag, as the girl continued her perusal, freezing when she reached them.  Or, rather, Ez.  Without looking, she grabbed her friend’s arm, and then pointed.  He followed her gaze, and there was a flash of a sort of confused recognition, uncertainty, pleasure—they looked at each other, talking animatedly, and Ezra stepped away from Vin and into the tavern, bemoaning the lack of wealthy businessmen on the coach.  Vin leaned back a little more comfortably, totally unconvinced by Ezra’s show, and waiting to see what would happen next.  He was more than a little amused at their chagrin to look back up and find Ezra gone, and the excited conversation that followed concluded with the girl kicking her companion in the shin and then proceeding with the utmost dignity across the street to approach Vin.

He straightened a bit from his slouch, and tipped his hat.  “Miss,” he acknowledged, giving a nod to the boy who followed protectively behind her, too.

“I beg your pardon,” she said with a confiding little smile.  “I wonder if you know where the gentleman who was standing with you a moment ago went?”

He cocked his head slightly towards the doorway beside him.  “Saloon,” he said.

“There, you see?  We’ll have to wait and maybe—“ the boy started.

The girl threw him a glare that would make Chris proud to own, and her weight shifted a little. 

The boy caught that shift, and he sidled cautiously away from her before she could repeat her move from before.  “Be reasonable, Merry,” the boy pleaded.

“I am extremely reasonable,” she said.  “Indeed, I am so reasonable that I recognize that there is no reason at all we might not step in and have a word with the gentleman.”  She nodded decidedly, took a breath and then a determined step towards the batwing doors.

“Merry, you can’t!  You know you can’t!  It ain’t proper!”

She turned and raised a brow, and to Vin’s surprise, the boy flushed.  “Isn’t proper,” he corrected himself.

“It’s the middle of the day,” she said.  “I’m certain my reputation will survive five daytime minutes in a saloon.  Besides,” she added.  “Nobody here knows me anyway.”  And then she walked in.  The boy followed anxiously, and Vin followed along, not quite sure what to expect, but having enough instinct to know a good show when all the props for one were getting set up.

The girl paused inside, waiting for her eyes to adjust, then spotted Ezra at his table near the back and advanced towards him, stopping a couple feet away, and said, “I beg your pardon, sir, might I have a moment of your time?”

Ezra studied her for a long moment, something Vin couldn’t quite name in his eyes, and a little smile flitting across his lips that Vin wasn’t sure anyone who didn’t know the man would even see.  “Certainly,” he said politely.  “Miss…?”

“Weatherby,” she said, flushing just a little.  “Meredith Weatherby.  This is Marshall Jacobs.  That’s his name, I mean—he’s not a real marshal.”  The boy glared at her, but she pushed on.  “I’m sorry to be forward, but we—we were just wondering if your name happens to be Saunders, sir?”

“No, I’m afraid not.  Ezra Standish, at your service.”

“Oh,” she said, deflating.  “Oh—I see.  I—I’m sorry to have bothered you, sir.”

“Not at all—might I inquire into the reason for your query?”

“It’s just—It’s just we thought you might be related to someone we know.  Knew.  Miss Eliza Saunders,” she said, in sort of the same tone that JD used when he mentioned Bat Masterson, especially early on.  “It’s just that you look an awful lot like her.”  She stopped and blushed.  “Not that you look like a lady—I don’t mean offense!”

“Why none taken,” he said.  “I wonder,” he added slowly, just as the boy grabbed the girl’s arm and started extricating them both.  “I wonder if the pair of you might hail form Clear River, Kansas?”

They both turned back eagerly.  “You do know her!” the boy gasped, suddenly as excited as his companion.

“Why yes, Eliza is quite one of my favorite cousins,” Ezra said.  “And you are not the first to mark our resemblance—with appropriate variety to suit our individual gender, of course,” he said, eyes sparkling with mirth.  “Are you setting back out immediately?  Perhaps we could converse more comfortably at the restaurant, if you’ve the time for it?”

“Lord, yes, I’m starved!” the boy said eagerly.

“We’ve a couple hours before the stage leaves,” the girl added.  “And yes, please, if it’s no trouble.  I know I shouldn’t have come in here, but....”  She trailed off, not quite certain how to explain.

Ezra smiled at her, standing and offering his arm, which she accepted with pleasure.  “I understand perfectly,” he said.  He hesitated a moment, and then said, “Would you care to join us, Vin?”

“I could eat,” Vin agreed cheerfully, pleased with the invitation.  He felt something was just a little off about this whole meeting—not bad, just not quite what it seemed, and was curious to figure it out.

“Allow me to introduce you both to my colleague, Vin Tanner.  Vin, these fine youths were students of my cousin, Eliza.”

“Nice to meetcha,” Vin offered, receiving a little curtsy from the girl.

The boy looked surprised but shook his hand.  “Colleague?” he said.  “Are you a gambler, too?”

Vin gave a sort of choked laugh, and Ezra smiled.  “Mr. Tanner will partake in a casual game of chance on occasion, but when he truly gambles, the risk is too his skin, rather than his wallet.”

“We’re part of th’group the circuit judge hired to protect the peace,” Vin explained. 

The girl’s eyes got big.  “It was _real_?” she said.

All three of her companions turned to her in confusion.

“The—the book,” she explained.  “The Magnificent Seven—this is _that_ Four Corners?  You’re— you’re Ezra Standish, the gambler!” she gasped.  “And—and you’re the bounty hunter with the price on your head!”

“Er,” Ezra interjected.  “We try not to discuss that price in public.”

She flushed.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “Of course.  Someone could hear, and—I just never imagined it could be—could really be _real_!”

“I take it, Miss Weatherby, that you’re a fan of dime novels?” Ezra queried, amused.

“Oh yes!” she said.  “They’re such fun!”

Marshall snorted, and then flushed a little when Ezra’s eyes turned to him.  “Drivel,” he said.  “No offense, since you’re in one—but I read a couple of Merry’s when I was desperate—and they were total trash.”

“Not a fan of adventure?” Ezra asked, his eyes dancing.

“I like adventure just fine!  But after you’ve read—read _The Count of Monte Cristo_ or _Tom Jones_ or _Robinson Crusoe_ —or _The Odyssey_ ,” he added, a wistful look in the back of his eyes.  He rallied.  “Really, Merry, I don’t know how you can bear to read ‘em, they’re so badly written!”

“ _The Odyssey_?” Ezra repeated, in apparent delight.  “A lover of the classics!  I shouldn’t have guessed that.” 

“I want to read it in Greek,” he said solemnly.  “I will one day.  _And_ I’ll read _The Count_ in French, you see if I don’t.”

The delight gave way to a sort of awe that Vin didn’t _quite_ comprehend, as Ezra said, “A child of languages, as well?  Truly a scholar.”

“Well I’m not yet,” he said.  “But I’m learning.  Greek and Latin for now—I’ll go for French once I’ve got a handle on ‘em.  I figure once I have them, the rest’ll come easier, with all the roots and everything.”

“An excellent approach,” Ezra agreed, guiding them all out of the saloon and down the street to the restaurant.

Merry, who spent the walk across the street eagerly looking around—to find the rest of the seven and any other landmarks or people mentioned in that novel, Vin suspected—calmed down a little once they settled around the table, and turned eager eyes to Ezra.  “You really are Miss Saunders’s cousin, aren’t you?” she asked.  “How amazing that we ran into you!  It could only be better if we’d run into _her_!”

“Why, I’m sure Eliza would be equally delighted,” Ezra replied politely.  “She must have made an impression for you to be so pleased to see a mere cousin.  Was she a good teacher?”  There was a sort of studied indifference that Vin wouldn’t have caught if he didn’t know the man so well, but as it was it made him look at him sharply and pay closer attention to the conversation, reminded that he had a mystery to solve.

The two youngsters stared at Ezra as though they’d been asked if Grant had done okay as a general.  “She was _amazing_ ,” Merry said.

“I wouldn’t be here, if not for her,” Marshall added.

Ezra blinked.  “Eliza never mentioned saving the life of one of her pupils.”

Marshall glared at Merry when she giggled, and shook his head.  “Didn’t mean that.  Meant I wouldn’t be _here_ ,” he said, waving a hand about to suggest the restaurant, or Four Corners, or the West.

Ezra blinked again.  “Wouldn’t you?  Why _are_ you here, if I might ask?”

“Oh!  We’re on our way to our new jobs.  We both graduated from Outer Reaches Normal School this Spring and we got positions in towns nearish together in Nevada,” Meredith explained.

“You’re … you’re both going to be teachers?”

Vin’s brows drew together a little.  Ezra looked rather like someone had hit him over the head with a shovel.

Both of the pair nodded eagerly.

“How … impressive,” Ezra murmured.  Not sounding sarcastic, just a little strained.  “And here is June, wanting us to order: let us do so.”

They did, and the minute or two taken was enough to wipe any trace of the unease from Ezra’s face. 

“So what did Ezra’s cousin have to do with you decidin’ to be a teacher?” Vin asked the boy.

Marshall shrugged.  “’Fore Miss Saunders came, I could hardly read,” he admitted.  “Neither of my parents could, and I was the oldest of the kids, and … it just never took.  I could make out my name okay, and could work out some more if it was simple, but not much and never easy.  Bout the same with numbers—I could mostly figure I got the right change back, if I wasn’t too rushed, but that was about it.  Thought school was a waste of time—knew I was just gonna be a farmer like my da, and if he didn’t need any of this learnin’, why should I?  He and ma insisted I go, but I never learned much, mostly just played with friends—and pranked the teachers,” he added with a grin.  “Then came Miss Saunders.”  He grinned reminiscently.  “We put a snake in her desk second day.  Thought it musta got out, though, ‘cause she just kept on teachin’ like always, openin’ up that desk and closin’ it with nary a flinch or a scream.  Next day, we come in and there’s a crate on a table in the corner with a screen on top, and she’s sayin’ we’re gonna have a biology lesson and learn about snakes.  We had ta catch mice and frogs to feed it all year.”

Vin chuckled.  “Sounds like your cousin’s got the family way of turnin’ situations round on folk,” Vin said, grinning at Ezra.

He smiled back, mask firmly back in place.  “But of course.”

“Thing of it was, I learned more about snakes than I knew there _was_ to know.  Same thing happened with everything she touched.  Miss Saunders didn’t teach, really—she—she sort of opened up the world.  We never recited times tables or nothin’ like that—but somehow I learned multiplication anyway.  I still couldn’t read that well by the time she left, but—but I figured out I wanted to, because she showed me how much people had to say, and you didn’t have to be in the right place and the right time to hear ‘em say it—not if you could read.   I’ve read things that got written _thousands_ of years ago, though they got translated more recently.  And everything was different—but people were still the same, and if that’s not amazing, I don’t know what is.  Only thing moreso is makin’ some dumb kid who could barely spell his name and didn’t see the point in doing more’n that _see_ how amazing that was.”  He shook his head.  “She was only there one year, but she changed my life.”

Merry grinned.  “Exactly—I finally realized I didn’t have to get married and be my mom.  Not yet, maybe not ever.  Who knows.  That there was more to life than figuring out which of the boys I liked well enough had the best farm and the nicest family.  So I decided before she even left that I was going to be a teacher—and then I made Marsh join in.  Because another thing Miss Saunders taught me was that I learn best when I’m teaching, and I didn’t think I’d get _into_ the Normal School, much less graduate, if I didn’t have someone else I was teaching the stuff to.”

Ezra just stared at them both for a moment, a little blankly, then murmured, “I’d no idea she’d had such an impact.  I’m sure she will be—will be delighted by your choices and honored that you consider her a factor in them.”

“Mr. Standish,” Marshall said uncertainly.  “How _is_ Miss Saunders?  She’s okay, isn’t she?  We were all awful worried when she left—that cough just weren’t gettin’—“ he broke off.  “Her cough wasn’t improving,” he tried again, flushing lightly.  “And—and some whispered she might be real sick.  And then when she said she couldn’t stay—“

Vin’s eyes widened slightly as the pieces finally fell together, and he coughed a little himself—or at least tried to make his laughter sound like it.

Ezra thumped him on the back, perhaps a little too heavily to be kind, and Vin met his eyes, reading the resignation and the fear and that little hint of amusement –and the pleading.  He nodded just a little, a silent promise that he wouldn’t be spilling any secrets, not to these kids and not to anyone else, and sipped his water and recovered from his ‘coughing’ fit, assuring his tablemates that he was fine.  “Ate a bit too fast,” he explained.  “Crumb musta gone down th’wrong way.”

“Dangerous that,” Ezra said.  “And no, my young friends, Eliza is, er, quite as well as she’s ever been.  Healthy and in high spirits, when last I heard.”

“Do you—do you have her direction, sir?  Would she think it rude if we wrote?” the boy asked eagerly.

“I’m sure she’d be delighted that you considered it,” Ezra replied politely.  “I don’t know where she is just now,” he added.  Then, at their disappointment, suggested, “If you write to my care, I should be glad to forward your missives, however.”

The pair lit up.  “Truly?”

“Would you?”

“Yes, certainly,” he agreed.

“She sounds like a mighty fine teacher,” Vin put in, arching just a hint of a laughing brow at Ezra. “Better’n any of mine were when I was a sprig, at least for regular classes. Got any more stories about her?”

The youngsters were all too eager to share a hundred more, and Vin enjoyed every single one, keeping one eye on his friend all the while.  Ezra finally gently herded them off to the hotel to freshen up and change clothers before resuming their journey, and then helped them back into the stagecoach. Ezra’s direction had been carefully printed and double checked and then folded carefully into Merry’s reticule, and the coach had faded into the distance before Vin let his grin fully widen across his face. “Sounds like a mighty good teacher,” he murmured.

Ezra looked down his nose at him. “Eliza was of the family,” he stated loftily. “There could be no question as to her abilities in whatever field she chose.”

“Reckon so,” Vin agreed cheerfully. “Reckon that’s so.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of my headcanon for a minor AU I'm working on in which Ezra is considerably younger than the others realize. In that 'verse, the times mentioned in this tale takes place some few years ago, when he'd just escaped from a House of Refuge (think Juvie). Then his voice started changing, making it necessary to move on. Vin does, at this time, know about his age-if not about how he spent his years. Eventually, I hope to post that, if I can ever finish figuring out how to resolve the issue in a way that doesn't include Ezra taking off, but in the meantime I thought this stood alone well enough to post.


End file.
